There has been a lot of speculation about energy issues since President Obama made clean energy and climate solutions a central part of his State of the Union Address and his Federal Budget.
People are wondering: What does it mean that Obama mentioned nuclear power as well as energy efficiency and renewables? Why did he include so-called "clean coal"? And did he really give up on a carbon cap when he spoke in New Hampshire on Tuesday?
I am glad people are engaging with these questions. After all, the Senate is considering the most important environmental votes of our generation: a clean energy and climate bill that could create nearly 2 million jobs, spur innovation in our economy, cut our dependence on dirty foreign oil, and make our nation more secure.
Still, given the politically charged atmosphere surrounding all major Congressional initiatives right now, it is easy to get confused. Here is my take on a few of the issues circulating in the news these days.
Obama Still Supports Putting a Price on Carbon Pollution
At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, President Obama was asked if we should pass an energy bill this year and wait until later to tackle carbon emissions. The president acknowledged that passing a clean energy and climate bill could be tough --a comment that some took as a sign that Obama was backing away from a cap on carbon--but then he made clear that he supports putting a cap on carbon emissions (listen to his comments here).
The next day at the White House, President Obama elaborated on these comments, urging Senate Democrats not to take the easy way out by simply offering tax credits to clean energy companies. He called on them to take the more comprehensive approach: "The market works best when it responds to price. And if [energy companies] start seeing that, you know what, dirty energy is a little pricier, clean energy is a little cheaper, they will innovate, and they will think things through in all kinds of innovative ways."
Key Republican Leader Opposes an Energy-Only Bill
As the questioner in New Hampshire indicated, there has been talk of doing an energy-only bill now and putting off a carbon cap until some time in the future.
President Obama opposes that approaches, but so does Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is leading a bipartisan push for a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill. On Wednesday, Graham dismissed the energy-only idea:
It's the 'kick the can down the road' approach. It's putting off to another Congress what really needs to be done comprehensively. I don't think you'll ever have energy independence the way I want until you start dealing with carbon pollution and pricing carbon. The two are interconnected.
Graham went on to say: "If the approach is to try to pass some half-assed energy bill and say that's moving the ball down the road, forget it with me."
There Is No Such Thing as "Clean Coal"
In his State of the Union, President Obama called on the Senate to pass a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill -- a bold statement that my colleagues and I were glad to hear. Then the president went on to say that in addition to investing in renewable power and energy efficiency, he wants to see more so-called "clean coal."
NRDC knows there is no such thing as "clean coal." Every single step in the coal power cycle is dirty, from the profoundly destructive mountaintop removal mining to the smokestack emissions, which are responsible for 24,000 deaths a year. NRDC has fought for 35 years to block these filthy practices. But the reality is that coal is relatively cheap and abundant, and it generates on average half of all our electricity. Coal will continue to be a part of our energy portfolio for awhile.
The need to reduce global warming emissions is so urgent that we can not wait until we have political support for replacing all coal plants with renewable sources. We must pass a law now that gets up moving down that path, and NRDC believes that a technology known as carbon capture and storage for coal plants should be included in the bill. This is what President Obama was referring to as "clean coal." We don't think that term is appropriate, but the technology really will reduce global warming pollution from power plants.
Massive Subsidies for the Nuclear Industry Are a Mistake
President Obama called for new nuclear power plants in his State of the Union Address, and he included massive subsidies for the industry in his Federal Budget. This was not surprising for two reasons. First, nuclear power always retains a prominent -- albeit quiet -- place in federal budgets and every single energy bill includes nuclear subsidies. Second, Senate Republicans have made it clear that in order to get bipartisan support for the clean energy and climate bill, nuclear power has to be on the table.
That said, I think nuclear power is far too expensive and problematic to be an effective climate solution, and it is a mistake to increase subsidies for the industry. Energy sources should compete for public dollars based on how well they provide clean, efficient, and affordable power. On that basis, nuclear power has a long way to go: after more than 60 years of federal subsidies, it continues to be a high-cost, subsidy-dependent, radioactive-waste generating, non-renewable energy source.
NRDC will continue fighting for cheaper, cleaner alternatives, and in this fight, we have Wall Street on our side. The federal government has incentivized nuclear power for years, and yet equity firms and utilities have shown little interest in investing in costly plants (see this post on Climate Progress for shocking examples of cost overruns). We don't think the fundamentals will change any time soon.
We Need to Pass a Comprehensive Clean Energy and Climate Bill Now
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama underscored the importance of passing "a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America."
The best way to do that is to pass the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act now before the Senate. We know that there will be plenty of energy companies trying to redefine their old fashioned technologies as "clean." But that's why we need to keep up the pressure to pass the strongest bill possible, one that will cap emissions and create a foundation for the development of a clean energy economy in the United States.
And we need to let our senators know where we stand -- for investment in clean energy, not old technologies. This is a landmark bill and it won't be easy, which is why we need your help and your senators need to hear from you.
This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.
What they really want to do is set up a playing field where nuclear doesn't have a chance to compete, and then write the history books to say that it wasn't implemented because it was uncompetitive. They are being highly disingenuous, to say the least.
What we should do is either eliminate all subsidies and portfolio standards, or have subsidies and portfolio standards that treat renewables and nuclear equally. Then they can (finally) compete head on, objectively and fairly. Under any system where there were no subsidies, equal subsidies, or subsidies handed out based on objective economic merit by a non-political body like the proposed Clean Energy Bank, nuclear would take most of the non-emitting market share.
First of all, official govt. data on the subject shows that no non-emitting sources are cheaper than nuclear, and that solar and wind are significantly more expensive.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/images/LevelizedCosts2010.jpg
Renewables have also been researched, and subsidied, for many decades. Now (and over the last 20 years), renewables are much more subsidized than nuclear, particularly on a per kW-hr basis. On top of this, we have Renewable Portfolio Standards that require large amounts of renewables use, regardless of cost or practicality (essentially an infinite subsidy), just in case even those very large subsidies are not enough. Without these subsidies, and outright mandates, Wall St. would be even more "unwilling to touch" renewables than nuclear.
Everyone (including NRDC) pays lip service to the notion of just capping or taxing CO2 emissions (or more generally, applying external costs) and letting the market decide how to respond (picking the lowest cost approach for emissions reductions, theoretically). The problem is that while they say that, groups like NRDC tacitly support policies (like RPS and massive subsidies for renewables only) that act to prevent any free, fair and objective competition between emissions-reduction technologies. Instead, they insist that govt. basically pick the winner (i.e., renewables). As an example, Waxman Markey, with its 15% RPS requirement that almost equals the 17% emissions reduction requirement, essentially hands most of the non-emitting energy market to renewables, by govt. fiat.
Carbon capture is a practical impossibility. It is like the production of ethanol from corn. When you add up all the figures you don't gain enough energy to make it worthwhile.
The heat released when turning carbon and oxygen into carbon dioxide is 394kj per mole. The theoretical minimum energy to separate it from the atmosphere and compress it to 74 bars at 30C (its critical temperature and pressure) so it becomes liquid is only 31 kj per mole. You can imagine a reversible process based on a selective semi-permeable membrane with atmospheric pressure and 380 ppm carbon dioxide on one side (partial pressure 0.385 mbar) and pure carbon dioxide at 0.385 mbar on the other. I have been conservative by calculating the work required to compress this sufficiently to condense it assuming ideality.
Practical processes of course require more energy input and nobody has ever pretended that carbon capture and sequestration are cheap or low energy options but they are decidedly not a practical impossibility as any fan of thermodynamics must recognise.
In a recent Times Online live debate see
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/12/live-debate-after-copenhagen-where-to-now-for-the-climate-debate.html
85% voted that "Fossil fuel companies should be obliged to sequester an increasing fraction of the carbon content of the products they sell to avoid dangerous climate change".
The International Energy Agency (an intergovernmental organisation) say that stabilising climate in 2050 will cost at least 70% more without carbon capture.
Recent reports from the World Future Energy Summit
http://cleantech.com/news/5532/carbon-capture-and-storage-rebooting
say that “speakers pointed to the maturation of CCS and many successful pilot facilities around the world. And they set the expectation that the industry is now ready to see production facilities built in large numbers.”
What is lacking is not the know-how but the incentive to apply it.
For more about how to make it happen, why the world will agree and how my proposal will also drive energy saving and renewables see my website at http://jemsavestheplanet.blogspot.com/
It accomplishes that task using power plants that are clean enough to operate inside submarines and sealed buildings. In the US the average production cost from a nuclear plant - even though they are using ancient, 1960s vintage technology, is about 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour which compares favorably to "cheap" and abundant coal at about 2.75 cents per kilowatt hour.
It is not hard to understand "Wall Street's" reluctance to use America's pension and mutual fund money to finance new plants - that would detract from their ability to use our money to rake in excess profits from financing coal, oil and gas investments. Abundant energy is a huge risk for them; they make money when people think that energy is scarce.
Rod Adams, Publisher, Atomic Insights; Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
If they aren't competitive without gov help after 50 and 100 years, they never will be.
99% of the nuke waste CANNOT be burned in other reactors, and burning it actually creates MORE curies and waste, but of a shorter lifetime.
Nuke's mess is going to cost us quadrillion's of dollars over a million years.
4 times longer than Homo Sapient, Modern Humans, have existed.
Instead pass
"The Green Jobs for Main Street Investment act"
spend a trillion on green upgrade for all appropriate gov building.
put in a small business incentive.
rooftop pv solar in the best ares is 3 cents per kwh, the cheapest electricity the end user can invest in.
see my profile for proof and links.
Building 100's of new nuclear power plants would improve the economy, reduce or eliminate dependence on foreign oil, create jobs, reduce pollution, and provide for future technological advancement.
I have been working with nuclear power for about 30 years, I would be glad to have a Nuclear power plant or high level waste disposal facility in my backyard. My family and I live in a home within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant. (where I work) I have a great understanding of the risks involved and am completely comfortable with a plant "in my backyard". I have confidence that my grandchildren’s grandchildren will be smart enough to treat the nuclear "waste" as a valuable resource or at least smart enough to handle it safely .
Nuclear power has the smallest environmental impact of any current energy production method per unit of energy produced. One fuel pellet about the size of a pencil eraser produces the same energy as about 1 ton of coal, and if reprocessed 2/3 of what’s left can be reclaimed. Nuclear power is our best option for reliable, environmentally friendly base-load electrical power.
Nuclear power plants are expensive to build, but when costs are looked at over the expected 60 year lifespan, among the most cost effective ways to produce electricty known.